Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Married
by MaussHauss
Summary: "You asked me what the last thing I remembered was. Obviously that's a stupid question, 'cause the last thing I'm gonna remember is you asking it." White/Orange slash. Special guest stars (in order of appearance) Robert DeNiro and Samuel L. Jackson.
1. Chapter 1

The black Impala slides down the California mountain roads like a panther of old Aztecca, gloss and glass and chrome glinting in the broad sunlight. Mr. White, navy pinstripe suit cut Italian to accommodate his broad torso, is at the wheel. Mr. Orange, brown tweed suit trimmed up English to add to his thinner frame, is sitting in the back seat - peering out at the trees and rocks as they pass in a dry tobacco palette. The radio is only picking up static, which is a point of contention in the conversation.

"Why am I even in the back seat?" Orange wonders vaguely, as if he doesn't know he's speaking out loud. "If anything, I think it's _me_ should be chauffeuring _you _around, Larry."

White eases off the acceleration in his surprise. "No names! And nobody's chauffeuring anybody, you're just in the back because - " The radio whines and bleats and White dials the volume down. "Because." He twists around to glance back at Orange, who nervously studies the road ahead in case there's an errant deer or semi-truck. "How the fuck do you know my name anyway?"

Orange's nerves turn to helpless agitation. "You told me. Last night. You're Larry and I'm..." A sheet of paper that had White's picture, a name and a history. Orange resists looking in his own wallet to find his own goddamn name, scowling into the rearview mirror. "I'm Mr. Orange."

White, unsatisfied with the disparity of who knew what, pulls the car to the highway shoulder so he can rest his forearm on the back of the seat and get this sorted. "It just don't feel right, you back there. Makes me nervous."

Orange's face screws up like he's blinking through a cloudburst. "You don't trust me at your back, Larry?"

"No," White muses. "Just feels like I should be back there with you."

Orange coughs, glancing down at his knees, eyebrows up. "Well."

"Fuck you, wise guy. I didn't mean it like that."

Now Orange is concerned. "Why not?"

"Why not what?"

A stunned pause. Fuck, he's forgotten what they were going on about. "Why not try a.m. frequency on the radio."

"You want to get up here and try it yourself? I'm driving."

Orange looks around the backseat as if there might be luggage to take with him, then shrugs. He's hesitant to even leave the car, scuffling to the passenger side door and rearranging himself in the front seat with haste. "Was my tie always this color?" It's green silk, is Orange's tie. The soft lines of yellow in the fabric remind White of hair falling in green eyes.

"What color should it be?" White grumbles, pawing the shift to pull them back onto the road.

"I dunno. It doesn't matter." Orange hikes an elbow out the open window, chewing a hangnail. The two drive in the broken static of the radio. Orange leans forward, both hands on his knees, studying the road ahead intently. "I think that's the same goddamn billboard we passed half an hour ago."

"It hasn't been half an hour. And you're just struck by what the Frenchies call deja-vu." White reaches across Orange's lap for the glove compartment, seeking a pack of cigarettes. "It's like a misfire in the brain, y'know. Something that's supposed to go to short-term memory gets stored in long-term, and bada-bing you're left with the impression of having known it before."

"I didn't know you went to college." Orange finds the pack of unfiltered Jack Smooths first and pulls one free, fixing it in the corner of his mouth to light it.

"I didn't." White sits back to his seat, accepting the cigarette. "They had an education program in the Joint."

"I didn't know you went to jail." Orange amends, kicking the glove compartment shut with his knee.

"Yes, you did."

"What?"

"You knew I went to jail. You knew everything. We wouldn't be here if you didn't." White's certainty is the only tether holding Orange back from panic.

Orange takes stock of himself, of the suit he normally wouldn't be caught dead in. He looks like a schmuck, and an old schmuck at that. Orange loosens his tie. "It feel warm in here to you?" Runs a hand through his hair, an unfamiliar snag tugging at his finger. Orange startles, yanking his hand down and away, holding it up to study against the bright sun painting the dash. "Jesus fucking christ." The ring glints as if it's winking at him. "Am I _married_?!"

"What?" White parts his attention from the road. "Aren't you?"

"No," Orange's entire forehead pinches up and he jabs a hand out of the window. "That fucking billboard sign! With its same fucking missing piece at the corner. There. Look!"

"All right, I'm looking." White pulls over carefully, idling the engine. "And I'm not too proud to admit it if we're lost; it's just that we been on a straight highway road for an entire afternoon with no turns, no crossroads, and no fucking signs." White exits the car and throws his cigarette.

Orange joins him around the side of the car, patting down his own pockets. "Can't find my wallet." He glares up at the cloudless sky. "Man, though, it is like a hundred degrees today."

White shrugs, studying the faded billboard looming over them for any comforting discrepancies. "Feels kinda cold t'me."

"Who the hell did I marry...?" Orange looks around as if his betrothed would be standing in the woods somewhere.

White pats himself down too. He unearths a stale cigar, a rusting revolver, and a 24 karat diamond ring.

"Ah, man, I'm burnin' up," Orange has his tie pulled free and the top buttons of his shirt open. He pauses. They stare at the diamond ring nestled in White's palm. Orange wipes his forehead, fist on his hip. Slouches forward, biting the corner of his mouth. The cigarette tucked behind his ear begins to smoke, cherry glowing. White and Orange both slap it away, cursing and laughing.

White stomps the cigarette like it's possessed, fist closed over the ring. Once convinced the danger is dead, White smooths his hair back and clears his throat. "Relax," he hitches his jacket straight, rolling his shoulders. "This is from years ago; that job that got me hard time." A reproachful chuckle. "I didn't kidnap you to Vegas or nothin'."

"White," Orange sits back against the hood of the car. He's not looking too good, is Orange, face ashen and shirt collar dark with sweat. He peels out of the suit jacket and mops the back of his neck with the tie. "What's the last thing you remember?"

_Don't you fukken tell me that, don't you say it._

_Larry, I'm..._

_You aren't nothin'. Just hang the fuck on, buddy boy._

White drops his taco back into its wrapper, expression dark. "What kinda question is that?"

Orange's big eyes flash over his dedication to the soda straw. He relents the beverage to answer. "Hunh?"

"You asked me what the last thing I remembered was. Obviously that's a stupid question, 'cause the last thing I'm gonna remember is you asking it."

"All right," Orange picks at a napkin. "So what's the first thing you remember, then?"

White gets comfortable in the restaurant booth, fishing a piece of tortilla out of a molar with his tongue. "... I suppose I can't actually remember."

Orange's smile is uneasy. "I remember the job we were on."

White startles forward, half out of his seat. "Oh, shit, we gotta meet Joe -"

"I remember getting shot."

White sits back down, as unhappy and stunned at this news as expected. "We musta gotten you fixed up."

"Did you?"

"Of course we did!" White lowers his voice as patrons glance over their shoulders. "You're alive, ain'tcha?"

"Who was the doctor?" Orange is pleading, long fingers clasped around the soda cup.

"I don't know, kid; it doesn't matter. You're here. You're safe." Larry stabs the tabletop with his finger at each word. "I'm gonna look after you." His bluster is held in the throat of his words, stubborn and warm.

Orange sulks at the wrappers of his dinner. "Deja vu."

"What?"

"All that." A hand flapping at the air between them. "Just something that feels like I heard it before."

"Yeah, sure," White grunts around his cigarette, "In our wedding vows, maybe?" A forgiving laugh. "Crazy dumb fukkin kid."

"I'm not."

"Dumb? I know. I'm just taking the piss out on -"

"A kid. I'm not a kid. I'm thirty two."

White has yet to successfully light his cigarette. The lighter flame keeps snuffing out, no matter how close it is to his face when he strikes the flint. "You told me you were twenty four."

"Yeah." Orange squints up at the water-pocked ceiling. "Hey, that's weird."

"That I find out you're a vain fuck on top of being a giant queer? I'd say so."

"No, asshole." Orange's drawl is nasal when he's trying to be extra tough. He thinks it sounds like New York, but really it just sounds like a headcold. "There's water damage on the ceiling of this restaurant. Don't get much rain these parts of Cali, last I checked."

White is gathering the refuse of their meal to a bright plastic tray. "A taco box is hardly an example of a fine dining establishment. Prolly took those damaged tiles from a trash heap."

Orange lets the matter drop. "Hey, Larry," He winces at the glare. Right. No names. "Is it cold in here, or what?"

* * *

_**PostScript:** A list of helpful references include the original Reservoir Dogs script_  
_(from where the diamond ring originates); paranormal television series'; para-_  
_normal films (one after which this story is named, derp); a whole lotta Tumblr _  
_culture; and the ResDogs k!meme on Dreamwidth. Shake well and serve with_  
_a liberal amount of pepper._


	2. Chapter 2

The Imapala slunk around the Taco Box parking lot like a shark through low tide. Orange elected to drive this time, and had decided to turn around back to L.A. so they could gain their bearings. The desert highways could stretch on forever, and it was no joke getting stranded miles away from a pay phone in the mountains where there were bears 'n shit.

"You handle her like a skip on the water, kid." White chuckles, impressed.

"My dad had a Chevy, big as a boat. I'd take it out for dates. Learned real quick how to drive a big car gentle."

An awkward silence descends, the air thick with memory. White rolls down his window, shucks his suit jacket off, inspects the pockets. He unwraps the stale cigar, bites the end off, lights it. The diamond on the ring now adorning his finger is turned inward, digging into the pad of his hand when he closes his fist. Seems like he always wore it like that, wore it just to keep a hold of it, never sold it because it had been a gift and you don't sell gifts.

"I didn't rob that jewelry store."

"Sure you did. I was there." Orange fiddles with the radio, gives up. His suit jacket lays crumpled and forgotten in the back seat, and out of the corner of his eye White thinks it might have blood on it.

"No, not the diamond heist. I mean that stick-up that got me hard time. Didn't even rob the joint. Wasn't even nowhere close when the job went down."

Orange's big eyes dart nervous between the gloom of the evening road and the gloom of White's exposition. "Hey, really? Somebody pay you to take some sorta fall?"

"Nah." White pulls at his cigar, chest working up and out, then in and down as he exhales a stream of acrid smoke. "Guess I just didn't want to not get caught."

"That'sa double negative. And bullshit besides."

White shrugs. "Whatever you wanna think about it, go ahead and think it. Won't change anything."

"Don't say that." Now Orange is visibly angry, and it's such a foreign look on his sneer-happy face that White can't take his eyes off. "Can't you just argue like usual, or something? Tell me you're a good guy, call me a dumb faggot?"

"Who the fuck is arguing? That's what I'm trying to say, kid, I didn't want to _not_ get caught."

Orange's shoulders had tensed at being called 'kid' again, knuckles tight at the wheel. "But you didn't want to get caught, either. Otherwise you could have turned yourself in."

"What the hell's the matter with you, you even listening? I didn't do that goddamn job; there was nothing to confess!"

Orange was driving fast, attention held by the glow of a hotel sign through the moonless trees. He's not driving gentle when he slams the brakes, wrenches the car into the gravel parking lot. There aren't any painted lines, so he parks the Imapala close to the stucco building, under a Sycamore. He's a little bit calmer with his hand on the door. "You shot up a house. Innocent people died. Which job was that, the one you also didn't do?"

"Yeah," White is already out of the car, voice raised to the argument. "You're fukken right I didn't do that job, neither. It got canceled. Finding an undercover fucking cop on the team, 's bound to put a damper on plans." The cigar colors his words with smoke and clenched teeth.

"We have a positive I.D. on file says your face was the face behind the gun. Guns, two of them." Maybe it's the suit. Orange doesn't hardly talk like that. Like he's not some doofy twenty-something high on his own reckless ego. Like an adult with a pretty fucking important day job. He's leaning a bony hip against the car, arms crossed around his stomach.

White ashes his cigar, licks the heel of his palm and extinguishes the brand on his own wet skin. "So?"

Orange had been expecting questions, anger. White was acting all out of sorts, or maybe just wasn't thinking straight just yet. "Larry," Orange tries to feel less small under the neon wash of the vacancy sign. "There's somethin' here that you're not actually hearing. Something I gotta tell you."

"Fuckin' forget about it."

"But I'm -"

"I said forget it!" White spins on heel, marches up to Orange, buries his fists in the front of Orange's shirt to pull him up. "You're gonna listen to me, buddy boy, you're gonna listen real close. Are you listening?"

Orange swallows, nods. _I was panicking for a moment back there._

"Good," White's grasp slackens, stepping closer. "You aren't nothing. You aren't any damn thing. You're fine. You got tagged, we got you fixed up, and now we just gotta find Joe and get our cut. Okay? All right? Tell me you understand the situation."

_The situation is I'm shot in the belly and without medical attention I am going to die._

White's expression darkens. "Say the fucking words."

"I'm all right," Orange mirrors White's grip, kneading at the expensive fabric of his shirt, keeping close. "I'm fine. I'm not nothing." His hand is warm against the back of White's neck, a firm squeeze. "Just Mr. Orange."

Their foreheads butt and White closes his eyes. "Okay," He takes a deep breath. "Good. Let's get checked in for the night."

"We can't find our wallets." Orange doesn't move, doesn't let go. The car under his hip still carries the warmth of the afternoon sun.

"Maybe we should check the trunk, hey?" White lets his grip fall down to Orange's middle, swaying their bodies together before letting go. He smacks Orange's flank the way baseball players might in passing each other on the field; Orange's ears and neck go dark. White circles the long Starboard of the Impala in a considerably better mood, and Orange climbs akimbo in the front to pop the trunk hatch.

White curses. White closes the trunk with a slam.

Orange ducks out of the front seat. "What? Nothing in there?"

"Oh, there's something in there all right." That 'something' is banging on the inside of the car, the high whine of a muffled voice.

Orange pales, takes the keys from the seat and strides forward to elbow White out of the way.

"You don't want to -" White turns his back, throwing his hands up. "Don't say I didn't warn ya."

Orange wrests the trunk open, "Jesus fucking christ! _Marvin_?!"

White spins. "You know this mook?"

Marvin Nash blinks up from the dark trunk, trying to protest through the duct tape gag. Marvin is a bloody mess, and the overwhelming stench of gasoline nearly burns Orange's eyes out as he uncuffs the officer and helps him stand from the car.

"Miracle you didn't fucking suffocate -" Orange mumbles, peeling the duct tape carefully from Marvin's ruined face.

Marvin coughs, retches. The scrape of gravel as White edges back to the front of the car like he doesn't want to be identified in any reports.

"All that gasoline, christ, is that from the car?" Orange wipes at Marvin's uniform.

Marvin Nash is soaked and shivering. "Fucking Newendyke." he coughs, smiling. "How do I look?"

_Fuck you! Fuck you, I'm dying! I'm fucking dying!_

"Uh." Orange peers around to the empty ragged hole of Marvin's head where his ear used to be. "You look good." His smile is watery. Sour.

Nash snorts, reaching into the trunk to retrieve and affix his gun back in its holster. "And here I thought you was supposed to be good at lying." He coughs again, a painful wet sound.

"Are you... are you shot?" Orange takes Marvin by the arm. "We need to radio in a 987?"

"Leave off, Freddy." Marvin shrugs out of the helping hand. White turns sharply at that name, but consoles himself to the background. Marvin looks around the lot, bending to brace his hands on his knees. "I gotta find my kid, is all. Tell him how to grow up right before Nancy marries some drunk kinda opportunist or some horrible shit like that."

"Officer, you need an ambulance." Orange pulls Marvin upright again.

"Fuck off!" Marvin explodes, pushing at Orange, getting in his face, a toothy grimace and gasoline-sour breath. "Fuck you, I didn't say shit, I never did and I was never gonna and that - that _psychopath_ fucking saw right through me! I was gonna fucking _burn_ for you, you piece of shit!"

White is at the scene now, frowning around his cigar while he tries to pull the men apart.

Marvin's outburst only builds momentum. "I was gonna burn for you, but you threw all that in my face like you could give a fuck! What happened to just sitting tight, huh? Fucking tell me, Newandyke, what the fuck happened to the plan to stay the fuck _alive_?"

"This guy's off his nut," White mumbles, blocking Orange from retaliation. "We should have never taken him out of that trunk. He's seen our faces."

"Deja vu," Orange's laugh is threedy and borderline hysterical.

"Aw, _fuck me_," Nash is in the middle of the parking lot, leaning back with his hands on his hips. Orange and White glance up in tandem to the spot Marvin is studying. Above the hotel, a painted wooden sign with spotlights casting it aglow like an artificial moon.

Hotel California.


End file.
